Daily App: Milestone (iOS): Simple, Spectacular Date Reminder

Calendar apps are part and parcel of most smartphone users’ apply arsenals. They are useful, essential and in many cases very comprehensive, but one thing they often are not, is visually spectacular (although there is the odd exception). In fact most calendar apps seem to take inspiration from the boxy format that is most seen in spreadsheets.

Which is why we must confess to being rather impressed by Dutch designer Marcel Wanders’ first attempt at an app. Called Milestone – Celebrate Moments That Matter, it is basically a date reminder, a feature that is associated mostly with calendar apps. What it definitely is not is predictable or even remotely dull. The app is designed to ensure, in keeping with its name, that you do not forget really important dates in your life. Of course, what is important is really down to you. It could be your wedding anniversary, your birthday, or well, us being geeks, it could be the launch of a device.

All you have to do is enter the date that is important to you in the app and specify how important it is to you – you get three options: important, super important and super super important. The app will then display in the form of a transparent hexagon on a timeline, with the size of the hexagon depending on the importance of the event. When the day of the event arrives, the hexagon goes red.

It all looks so different from your run-of-the-mill calendar reminder system on the surface, and there are push notifications too. But there’s more. For unlike the routine reminder systems that basically show what you have entered, with perhaps the time left for a certain event to happen, Milestone actually pulls out interesting statistics to make the event seem more interesting. So for instance, when you enter someone’s birthday, you don’t just see it in the form of a hexagon on a timeline in which events are arranged one below the other, but tapping on the hexagon also gives you statistical trivia like: the person would complete 3,00,000 hours of existence on so and so date, the person would complete 500 months existence on this date, and so on – just swipe to see the next one. Depending on the event, you end with up with 5-7 slices of statistical trivia, which you can also share on Facebook and Twitter if you are the socially networked types. You can add and remove events, and change their levels of importance, depending on your inclination.

It focuses on a few important days, is simple enough to use (you only have to enter the date and time, and the importance of an event) and makes the countdown to them interesting as well as very graphically appealing. You know, we are considering using this for marking meetings, simply because it works so smoothly and looks so awesome. Plus, knowing there are 1800 seconds to a deadline sounds SO much better than thirty minutes! Definitely worth a try, and not just because it is free.

Nimish Dubey Editorial Mentor Nimish Dubey has been writing for more than a decade now (well, Windows 3.1 was around and Apple was on the verge of being finished when he started). He has been published in a number of publications including The Times of India, Mint, The Economic Times, Mid-Day and Femina on subjects that vary from tech write -ups to book reviews to music album round ups. He managed to interview Michael Schumacher once and write two books for young adults along the way.